The Last Runaway – Tracy Chevalier

English Quaker Honor Bright travels to America in search of a new life, alongside her sister Grace who is engaged to be married to an older man from their home town of Bridport who’d already set up a farm in one of the Quaker settlements in northern Ohio.

Honor’s journey proves to be harder than she’d expected, physically and emotionally, and her life gets no easier once she reaches Oberlin – slowly but surely she becomes aware of and then involved in the Underground Railroad, helping slaves escape to freedom across the border in Canada.

Don’t let the sombre subject matter put you off…. there are excellent characters, quilt-lore galore and 1850s Americana.

Author’s webpage: The Last Runaway – Tracy Chevalier